Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street (2008) Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm okay. Today I'm going to be talking about a very cool book called Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street by Michael Davis, which was published in 2008. I'm also going to be talking about my own history with Sesame Street at a later time because I have alot to cover on that topic and it'd make this review super long and I don't have the patience for that today. So let's get into it.

I first laid eyes on this book back in 2009. My mom and I were in Indigo Books near where we live now, and we were just looking around. My mom saw this book, and asked me if we should get it for my grandfather because he loved Oscar the Grouch. I said yes because I thought it would make for a good birthday present for him, so we bought it and gave it to him. Then a few weeks ago, my parents were out visiting my grandmother and helping her do some stuff around her house and when they came home, they had this book for me as Nana had found it while going through some stuff. Even though it's been a little more than two years since Grandpa passed away, I had never asked about this book. I kept meaning to, but it always slipped my mind. I started reading it that night before bed.

As someone who watched Sesame Street all the time when I was a kid, I found this book to be fascinating. Yes, it's a kids show, but the production process is exactly the same whether the show is for adults or for children. So I thought it was really interesting to find out so many things about the show's early years in 1969 and the early '70s, before I was even born. I even learned things about the show from around the time I started watching it in the early '90s. For example, I did not know that Alan Menken, who worked on alot of Disney movies in the '80s and '90s, and the 2000s and 2010s, wrote songs for Sesame Street prior to being hired at Disney. So that was cool to find out.

The thing that surprised me about this book is how biographical it is. Most of the book is taken up with biographies of all of the major players involved in the creation and production of Sesame Street in the '60s, '70s and '80s. Which is cool, because there's still a ton of actual production stuff that was talked about in the book. I just found it a bit odd for a history of Sesame Street book.

What I liked most about this book is the connections to both Captain Kangaroo and Barney & Friends. I watched both of those shows and I was interested to find out that many of the writers for Captain Kangaroo ended up going over to Sesame Street when that show began development and production.

For Barney, it makes sense that Sesame Street's producers wouldn't feel threatened by the purple dinosaur until Barney & Friends started airing on PBS in 1992. The initial Barney & The Backyard Gang videos from 1988 and 1989 really only sold in Texas. Even when they became widely available in 1990, and sold in high volumes, the Sesame Street home video releases at the time, still outsold the Barney tapes, and of course the distribution of the tapes didn't affect Sesame Street's ratings any. It wasn't until Barney exploded into popularity with the first season of Barney & Friends in 1992 did the producers of Sesame Street begin to worry.

One other thing that I'd like to bring up in this review is how the book covered the popularity of Tickle Me Elmo. By the time the toy came out in 1996, Elmo had already replaced Big Bird as Sesame Street's mascot, so naturally if a toy of Elmo came out then it would be a popular toy. The fact that the toy sold out all over the country is something I don't think I've seen since...well, probably since 1993 when the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers initial toyline came out around the time that show debuted. 

Honestly, I really enjoyed this book. It reminded me of why I still love Sesame Street even though I haven't actually watched it in about 25 years. It's funny, it's important, and it's spectacularly made. It may be a preschool show now, but that doesn't matter when it comes to the production quality on the show. If you've never read this book before, I highly, HIGHLY, recommend you do so.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow though for my full series review of The Book of Boba Fett, which ends tomorrow with the finale. So until then have an awesome evening, stay safe, and I will talk to you all later. Take care!